You get a purple, and you get a purple, and you get a purple. I guess these purple cookies had to stand in for Oprah at this bridal shower. Hey, it’s The Color Purple, one way or another.
Tag Archives: cookie favors
Get Nauti
Joan and Steve have floated into wedded bliss. Joan has sailed all of her life, even traveling abroad to compete for her university team! So it made complete sense that they choose a nautical theme for their ocean side wedding. May their marriage be ‘anchored’ by humor and commitment and their love be as wide as the sea.
The image from their invite that was my inspiration…
Lots and lots of guests for lots and lots of fun.
May I ask you a Favor?
Caroline and Donnell had a fairy tale romance so their wedding favors had to step it up to shine like this beautiful couple!! Caroline chose two different designs; both had parchment colored background and a white floral to mimic their invitations. She couldn’t decide between “Mr & Mrs” or “hello LOVE” so why not have both!
Mr & Mrs:
Hello Love (based on stencil by Killer Zebras!):
American Ninja Warrior
So William turned 6 and celebrated with an obstacle course and a blue, black and white themed party. With the speed of a ninja, I pulled my trusty “kick backside” cutter out to create his party favors.
The ninja.
The army.
With armament (airbrushed wafer paper).
Tori’s Bridal Shower
So here is a secret that is not such a secret: I love hosting parties! Love, love, love having kids/folks to the house and all the ruckus and preparation that comes with it. So when Tori (our eldest) picked a date for her bridal shower, I was jumping for planning joy. Unfortunately, Denver is a bit too far of a commute from Philly so I flew in for an awesome weekend of food tasting, er, I mean, checking out venues for her bridal shower. Kensington Quarters totally had that rustic industrial feel she was looking for and we couldn’t have been more pleased with the upstairs room, their service, the food, and great atmosphere!
It was a definite given that the favors would be cookies. Thought Tori would like a little bling like the ring…
Since I had to ship things across the country, the prep for the shower could not be too complicated. Tori’s colors are blush, gold and white so I made a bunch of full sized tassels using instructions through Oh Happy Day! (The tissue paper pack was a set found at Target). I spaced the tassels on simple twine and ran them along the stair railings and the gift table. Thanks Kendra for getting all this set up!
I dipped various sizes of mason jars in gold paint (jars and paint from Target) and sent them to Pure Design Florist (Pure Design saved my backside because I had quite the time finding a Philly florist that was close enough to the venue to deliver and also open on Memorial day weekend!).
One of the bridesmaids, Jill, is a graphic designer. She worked her magic to create the templates for the games we played. I asked her to 1) use the rustic look of wood and lights at Kensington and 2) put a &%$)! load of information on small sheets! The cards were absolutely perfect! Game playing was apparently informative, seasoned with splash of competitiveness; thanks to future Mom-in-law, Johanna, and sister-in-law, Melina, for providing the gift baskets for the lucky winners!
Another bridesmaid, Joan, brought bunches of balloons, decorated with witty words. I’m a sucker for clever words appropriately placed.
We brought Byron upstairs for the latter part of the shower. The almost.bride.and.groom got mini white boards (thank you once again Target) to play our version of “the newlywed game”! POSITIVELY HYSTERICAL! SO MUCH FUN! (Google ‘newlywed game questions’ or ‘newlywed game questions bridal shower’ and you will get more ideas than you would ever need). I typed out many questions and the bridesmaids took turns picking a question to ask.
Tori likes clean lined, structured designs with just a kiss of bling. So we got this cake from the wonderful Whipped Bakeshop in Fishtown. Not only was the cake delicious and beautiful, Whipped Bakeshop was super wonderful to work with. The topper came from Communicakeit. I fell in love with it as soon I saw it on Instagram; it had just the right words and shine for the occasion!
Our (not such a) baby girl!
Tori and her sister/maid of honor (so lucky to have these two daughters)!
Thank you to all of the bridemaids and Johanna for such a successful bridal shower! Your help and collaboration made things run smooth as silk! …. sorry Melina isn’t in this picture 😦
Diamond in the Rough
The country club/golf fund raiser theme was “diamond in the rough.” The client’s only instructions were ‘we want a diamond…’ I asked ‘diamond?’ …not “rough” like a fairway rough or a diamond sitting in a fairway rough? ‘Nope, a diamond. And put it in a bag with a ribbon…100 bags.’ Okay. What could I do with quick efficiency and (because I am who I am) in a design that I had not seen before? Here are the resulting cookies:
(PS: These cookies would also be great for an engagement party or bridal shower!)
I started with a simple superman “s” shaped cookie cutter and flooded them with white royal icing. That dried overnight before I added the blue.ish accents (which only had to dry a short time…like an hour or so) before I free-hand/penned in the diamond outline. I used an Americolor black pen. Here’s a quick pic of the general steps I took to get it done.
Diamonds were my new best friend.
Perfect size for the setting, eh?
Sports Crazy Birthday favors
So Jack goes nuts over all sorts of sports. His birthday invite showcased several balls so, of course, the favors followed suit (follow the bouncing ball?)! His thoughtful, loving mom even had a T-shirt embroidered specifically for the occasion. The last picture is a photo of the design from the embroiderer and the matching cookie made for the birthday guy.
One in a Minion
Despicable Me minions were requested for birthday favors/a party platter, with some female versions included! Conveniently, Sweet Ambs had just posted a tutorial on minion.making and, if ever anyone knew cookie decorating, it would be the awe-inspiring Amber Spiegel. So I followed her directions other than also making a female version (birthday girl really likes blue so dresses are blue not the green from the movie), royal icing in my own “eyes,” and using my own hearts (saying thank you to the guests, etc.). The bigger minions (from 4″ rounds) all had unique faces but the favor sized (3″ tall rectangles) were the same design.
Step one was flooding the little hearts and letting them dry. About 6 hours later I painted on the “thx” or “luv” or “Liana.” In the meanwhile, I did the yellow face background. I let this dry for 4 hours (Sweet Ambs did not but I had an errand to run. It worked for me.). Next was putting on the pants and dresses; I placed the heart on while the icing was wet, basically as soon as the pants on each cookie was completed. For the dress, I added the dots and bottom trim while the icing was wet first and then added the heart.
Then I continued following Sweet Ambs directions. Here’s how they turned out.
After drying overnight, I put a boy and a girl (or Stewart dressed up as a girl) minion back to back to place in the favor bag. Added a cute little tag and they were ready for the guests!
Mama Mayer Bakery 